Journal of Medical Education
Volume:16 Issue: 2, May 2017

Social accountability has been increasingly discussed over the past three decades in various fields providing service to the community and has been expressed as a goal for various areas. In medical education system, like other social accountability areas, it is considered as one of the main objectives globally. The aim of this study was to seek a social accountability theory in the medical education system that is capable of identifying all the standards, norms, and conditions within the country related to the study subject and recognize their relationship. In this study, a total of eight experts in the field of social accountability in medical education system with executive or study experience were interviewed personally. After analysis of interviews, 379 codes, 59 secondary categories, 16 subcategories, and 9 main categories were obtained. The resulting data was collected and analyzed at three levels of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding in the form of grounded theory study of “Accountability model of medical education in Iran”, which can be used in education system’s policies and planning for social accountability, given that almost all effective components of social accountability in higher education health system with causal and facilitator associations were determined.

Knowledge transfer is known as a core process in knowledge management. Its decent and influential function in organizations would result in regeneration and innovation of knowledge.
Due to this importance, the most recent research in knowledge management has been inclined toward knowledge transfer concept. We aimed to investigate the most influencing contributing factors in knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing within the faculty members at Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
This investigation has been conducted with a qualitative approach as well as implanting GT approach. The toolkit is semi-structured interviews that are done on a sample of 17 faculty members of ten distinct departments of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The data has been content analyzed with coding method.
By carefully analyzing the interviews from 272 preliminary open codes after sequential analogies and induction, 54 concepts have been extracted that were categorized into one of eleven classes constituting the effective items and factors in knowledge transfer among faculty members, respectively. These categories could be placed into , non-communication factors and communication factors. The non-communication factors were knowledge actors (professors), organization (university), the knowledge, and surroundings. The communication factors are the factors that are formed in the dual relationships between the relevant factors.
A decent knowledge flow in working groups and collaborative societies of faculty members within a department or through different university departments would lead to a better research and education management. This could also bring about some advantages: the research in each department falls in a well-defined, pre-missioned channel, avoiding scattered research works, and enhancing the training and research. The awareness of university senior managers about influencing contributing factors of knowledge transfer and their functions provide a robust panel for tracing the knowledge flow and help them establish the knowledge flow for production and regeneration of genuine knowledge.

This study was meant to evaluate the knowledge and utilization of information and communication technology (ICT) resources by students in the Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, University of Calabar and recommend possible reforms to enhance knowledge and use of ICT by the students.
A 31-item questionnaire was developed to evaluate the knowledge and use of ICT by students in the Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, University of Calabar. The questionnaire was administered to 240 students in the Faculty through random sampling after it was tested for validity. Data obtained were evaluated in terms of percentages and simple differences.
About 88 (40%) students had good knowledge of ICT while the remaining 132 (60%) did not have good ICT knowledge and were not trained previously. It was also discovered that all the Departments in the Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences did not have adequate ICT facilities. The results also showed that few students in the Faculty use ICT facilities for assignment, research and updating lecture notes while most students (n=194, 88.18%), use the available ICT facilities mainly for social networking and recreation.
ICT use by students in the Allied Medical Sciences faculty, University of Calabar, is low due to inadequacy of the ICT facilities and lack of training and competence.

Non-attendance is an undesirable student behavior. Although some studies about the factors for non-attendance behavior have been carried out at medical schools, the learning approach of a student has not been studied and it can also be a factor for non-attendance. We aimed to assess the relationship between learning approaches and non-attendance attitude and tendency.
This is a correlational study. 644 students registered in three medical schools were enrolled. Data were collected during May 2015. “The Revised Two Factor Learning Approach Scale”, “Non-attendance Attitude Scale” and “Non-attendance Tendency Scale” were used as data collection tools.
Out of 478 studied students, 10.3% mentioned that they never missed theoretical classes and 71.3% mentioned that they never missed practical classes. Sleeplessness was the most common reason for non-attendance. 45.6% of all students thought that non-attendance affected student success. The students’ mean score for deep learning was 29.5±6.1 and for superficial learning was 30.5±5.6. The mean score for non-attendance attitude scale was 54.4±12.8 and from non-attendance tendency scale was 90.5±19.6.
Learning approach is an effective factor for attendance. As deep learning approach is adopted, tendency for non-attendance decreases and the attitude becomes positive.

Medical research is an important aspect of health care. In order to promote research, the regulation of Medical Council of India had made publications as a pre-requisite of promotion. The present study has been planned to assess the knowledge and perception of the medical faculty towards research, and to identify barriers in undertaking research. Lack of aptitude for research emanates from lack of knowledge, motivation, resources, funding and administrative support. This study aimed to assess the perception related to knowledge, practices and barriers in undertaking research among the medical faculty.
The present study was a cross-sectional study conducted among faculty members of the Government Medical College, Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand. A pre-tested questionnaire was administered to assess the perception of respondents related to knowledge, practices and barriers in undertaking research.
39.6% of the faculty members felt that their primary activity was only teaching. 75% of the faculty members considered themselves as having some knowledge in research methods. 25% of the faculty members always had problems in accessing the scientific literature in conducting the research. Barriers were felt by the faculty members in areas of funding, support from institution, administration, etc.
Knowledge about source of funding, research methods, and biostatistics was perceived to be lacking. Also, faculty members felt the lack of motivation as a barrier in undertaking research.

One of the common problems of education in universities is that teachers do not evaluate continuously. The effect of continuous evaluation on student learning has been less investigated and this study intends to address this issue.
In this quasi-experimental study, 30 students in the first semester of 2014 and 22 students in the first semester of 2015 were enrolled. The control group received teaching in the form of lecture with question and answer in all sessions and the intervention group in addition to that, received quizzes every week. Finally, test scores of students were compared. Data were analyzed using independent t, paired t, and Chi-square tests and P Mean scores of midterm examination in the intervention and control group were 3.77±0.47 and 3.25±0.44, respectively (P=0.003). Also mean scores of the final examination in the intervention and control groups were 16.69 ±1.63 and 15.40±1.02 (P Weekly quiz tests increased the test scores in the midterm and final examinations in the students.